


Snow And Like-Minded Lullabies

by Jenwryn



Category: Death Note
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-25
Updated: 2008-10-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:50:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mello wakes up to the sight of Near gazing up at him. Wammy's Era.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow And Like-Minded Lullabies

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday present for Chamyl.

_"We only have this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand... and melting like a snowflake."_  
~ Marie Beyon Ray.

 

*****

 

Ancient History study all evening and now Mello sits with his chair cocked back on two legs and his head leant against the wall, just momentarily, he tells himself, just briefly, because he needs to rest his eyes a moment from the soldier lines of small print marching darkly in his textbooks from Troy to the dusty plains of the Peloponnese and their rough-clad Spartans; because he needs to pause his racing mind a little after a day of facts and figures... until the gentle sound of Near's puzzle pieces, and the soft _splatt-splatt _ of snow against the window, lull the blond to sleep.

 

He wakes, struggles to pull the world in-focus, and finds Near gazing up at him from beneath that white-mop-hair of his. Mello would make some automatically cutting comment but he isn't fully functioning yet, and the bizarre thought that his breath might be bad (because he dozed, and it's god-knows-what-o'clock, and why should he care anyway?) hits his frontal lobes, and, besides, Near is so close that-

 

The pale boy's expression doesn't change when he sees Mello's eyes open; nothing evident except that same, eternally quiet curiosity, but he shifts his body in a shuffling way from left socked-foot to right socked-foot and then, before Mello has even finished swallowing, and rubbing the back of his hand across his dry lips in preparation for speech, Near produces a closed hand from one of his pockets. Then, as Mello still grapples with his own, much less-disciplined, face, Near unfurls his fist and reveals a few squares of chocolate dressed in the torn-off piece of a rather beaten wrapper. Mello watches, suddenly half-conscious of how his chair is balanced unsteadily against the wall (had he fallen asleep with it aslant like that? small miracles he hadn't fallen off), half-conscious of the way the cold is creeping in at the edge of the window panes and sliding little fingers of ice against his skin, but most of all painfully aware that his maths doesn't add up, since his mind and all it controls, is also so much more than half-conscious, conscious with stomach-swirling precision, of those other small fingers before him, as Near's little white thumb holds down the edge of the wrapper and he undoes it, revealing two brown squares laying stark against the pale, in the open palm of Near's hand. And then he lifts that hand, loose sleeve sliding back to reveal a too-thin too-white arm and an even whiter elbow; lifts that hand and the chocolate's siren scent shift through the hushed air of the library and the cool outside chill; lifts that hand as though it were a tithe, or offering, or a symbol of peace.

 

The library is so still. Mello can hear the grandfather clock, at the wall behind him, tick steadily to itself in a countdown of life, and he'd turn and look but he doesn't trust the unsteadiness of his seat, and he can't rock it back down onto four legs because Near is standing too close and would end up somehow beneath it. And Mello listens to that _chuck-tick-chuck _of the clock, and the soft whisperings of the snow, and tells himself that it's just because he missed dinner that his insides have curled into strange fluid knots-and-runes, at the sight of Near's eyes so big and so suddenly intent, and the heady scent of good chocolate, which looks warm and milky against that palm.

 

"Where'd you get the chocolate?" Mello demands sharply, because if all else fails curt words are at least familiar, but Near just moves his shoulders slightly in the pale imitation of a shrug, and shifts his hand a little closer.

 

"Mell-" starts Near.

 

The clock chimes, echoing and loud against Mello's too-close head, and he lurches at the first _doiiing_, chair flying forwards and his thoughts in a thousands shards but mainly that it's _bloody loud and bloody late and Near will never move out of the way fast enough because he's Near and so pathetic like that_ and yet somehow, even as the chair flails forwards, Mello has wrapped his hands tight at a soft waist, and then the chair is still, and the clock's chimes have passed away into a hummed vibrating nothingness and there is warmth, such warmth, in his arms, and Mello finds himself seated with his rival in his lap. Near's hair is fine and silken against Mello's cheek, and makes Mello's nose twitch not-at-all unpleasantly.

 

Shocked, Mello shoves harshly at the boy, only to discover that Near's arms are clamped firmly around his neck.

 

"Near..." he growls warningly.

 

Inexplicably, Near just wriggles in closer and murmurs, "Mello is so _warm_," as though that were an excuse to cling to him like a limpet. Mello grabs hold of him by the back of his oversized white shirt with the intention of ripping him away, because it isn't as though the messy-haired boy is particularly strong anyway and-

 

-when he feels the whisper of warm breath against his neck, the tentative touch of curious lips, then, _then, _for the first time in years, Mihael Keehl's mind stops completely still. "What...?" he tries, and "Why...?", but his mouth gives up a moment after his brain, as Near simply clings tighter, and kisses him, and _sniffs _at him.

 

"Even your skin smells like chocolate," observes the younger boy serenely, and Mello wonders in vague panic whether his limbs are functioning enough to stand up and drop Near to the floor before running a mile. And yet, and yet, and _yet_-

 

"D'you still have it?" he asks abruptly, after clearing his throat at least three times, seeing as it's apparently not functioning well either.

 

Near snuffles his lips and nose along the edge of Mello's collar, then shifts slightly, pulling his head back to gaze up at the blond from beneath his hair again, all big-eyes and curiosity. And then he's nodding, and somehow Mello is eating chocolate direct from Near's hand, and it's warm and moist from having been clutched tightly, and there are smears of it across Near's palm, and Mello is kissing it, licking at it, letting Near feed him, and feeling warmer than he ever has as Near snuggles in yet closer with the delighted air of a small animal that has suddenly found itself a home.

"Mello is so _warm_," Near repeats wonderingly again, and Mello lets him stay there, running his hands along the curve of the younger boy's back. _Near is warm too,_ Mello thinks, and realises that he's surprised, and furthermore realises that he likes this; the pair of them wound on the chair amidst the silence of the library, and the ice fingers of the outside air, creeping through the glass, as no match for the heat of the cuddling boy. _You can stay just a while_, Mello thinks, though he cannot say it, and he rests his head back against the wall and thinks of Spartan boys, and distant lands, and the cold of winter, and the clock ticking at the wall, but it's the feel of Near's hand against his chest, snug and counting heartbeats, that lulls him back to sleep...


End file.
